Here are the complete rules with examples. Please read when you have the chance since I think you are all new to the game.

Codenames is played by two teams; the red team and the blue team. Each team will select one player to be the clue giver for each round. We will play enough rounds for everyone to be the clue giver once.

For each round I will generate a grid of words and send it to the clue givers. Sample:

Codenames

Lion

Spit

Ceiling

Charger

Jump

Birthday

Flutter

Dress

Star

Machine

Shallow

Acre

Can

Pawn

Outer

Continuum

Cuticle

Midsummer

Dot

Zamboni

Scoundrel

Dunk

Drain

Blacksmith

Flashlight

There are four types of words on the grid:Blue Words - These are the words that the blue clue giver wants the blue team to guess.Red Words - These are the words that the red clue giver wants the red team to guess.Neutral Words - These are words that no team wants to guess.Assassin - This is a single word. If guessed by a team the game is immediately over and the team that guessed the assassin loses the game.

During the game clue givers will take turns giving their team a clue. Clues will take the form of a single word* followed by a number. This is the only communication allowed in the thread by the clue giver.

For example, the blue clue giver might post Space: 2. This would indicate that there are 2 blue words on the grid that somehow relate to the word space. The clue must be related to the meaning of the word. You can't clue the spelling, or by rhyming, etc.

The guessing team then discusses in thread (no PM communication for this game) what they think the answers might be. Any player on the team my make an official guess byt posting in bold with the word guess. Like so: Guess: Star (bold type indicates that this is an official guess.)

"Myself or either of the clue givers can tell them what the results of their guess is. If they guessed a word for their team the result will be revealed and they will get to guess again. They can take up to as many guesses as the number their clue giver gave plus one extra guess. If they guess a neutral word or a word for the other team that result is also revealed and the team's turn is over. They get no additional guesses. If the guessed the assassin the game is over and they lost. At this point the entire grid can be revealed.
"

If no team guesses the assassin then the game ends when one team correctly guesses all their words and that team wins.

NOTE: There are two special cases for the number part of the clue. The clue giver can say 0 for the number. This indicates that the team should NOT guess words matching this clue, and gives them unlimited guesses for that turn. Or the clugiver can say "unlimited" instead of a number. This will not tell the players how many words the clue is for, but it will give them an unlimited number of guessess which can be good if they need to catch up.

*There is an exception to the single word rule for proper nouns. You can use multi-word proper nouns as a single clue. Thus "New York City" is a valid clue, and so is "Things to do in Denver When You're Dead".

I have determined the teams randomly. If you have any objections to the teams please let me know ASAP. First step is for each team needs to pick who will be the first clue giver. Then I can generate and distribute the grid for round 1.

Okay that's good enough for me. Limoncello and Kael will be our first clue givers. I will send you both a PM soon with the solution grid. You should not post anything else in this thread during round 1 except for your clues.

Here is the first round grid:

Codenames

Baseball

Paint

Toast

Plan

Hem

Forehead

Ivory

Book

Dimple

Reimbursement

Teapot

Elephant

Heart

Ditch

Motorcycle

Satellite

Point

Cog

Advertise

Flagpole

Battery

Plate

Hopscotch

Lunch

Moth

Red will be going first. For this reason the Red team has one extra word to guess.

9 Red Remaining

8 Blue Remaining

Kael you can post your first clue whenever you are ready. Please PM if you have any questions.

Yeah, I thought of motorcycle too. A motorcycle is not a key, of course, but it needs a key more than any of the other candidate words seem to.

As I understand it we should guess the one we're most confident of first. If we get our first guess wrong then is that the end of our turn? But if it is then we'd never need the 'one more guess than the number of words' . I suppose that, by chance, we might guess red words that the 'key' clue doesn't apply to (or at least Kael might not have thought so) and then we could use all three allowed guesses? What happens if we get our first two guesses right and don't wish to make a third guess? Or in the general case can a team decide just to pass some of their guesses rather than risk hitting the assassin word?

You are correct that your turn ends if you get your guess wrong. The extra guess is so on future turns you can try to guess for old clues that you were previously unsuccessful at. If you got your first guess right, but missed your second on this turn. Then next turn you can use your extra guess for another word you think might fit this clue if you want.

I missed the rule where you have to take at least 1 guess, but after your first guess you may pass if you don't want to take anymore regardless of the number you have remaining.

__________________What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. ... The origin of myths is explained in this way.